The Best Media Streaming Devices

Updated April 5, 2019

We’ve added a note about a new Google-sponsored ad program that now runs on devices running Android TV.

Your guide

Chris Heinonen

The single most important task for a media streaming device is to make finding the shows and movies you want to watch easier and faster. Having tested more than 20 devices over the past four years, we think the Roku Streaming Stick+ is the one to get because it’s the best way to access the Roku OS, which supports the most streaming services and has a universal search feature that prioritizes free and cheap results over any individual service.

Buying Options

The Roku Streaming Stick+ offers an impressive feature set for its low price. It supports the latest 4K, HDR10, and WCG video formats and Dolby Atmos for audio. Its redesigned Wi-Fi antenna supports faster 802.11ac and also improves reception compared with previous models. Its RF remote has dedicated power and volume controls for your TV, works through walls and cabinetry, and lets you search with voice. Roku’s iOS or Android app lets you watch shows and movies with headphones to avoid disturbing others. Finally, this HDMI stick is super easy to set up, has a convenient design, and gets all the power it needs from your TV’s USB service port.

Buying Options

The Roku Premiere+ offers the same interface, speed, features, and content as the Streaming Stick+ in a standalone box. Although we think this design is less convenient than an HDMI stick that plugs directly into the TV, the new box design is much smaller and more discreet than previous models. In terms of performance, the main difference is that the Premiere+ uses 802.11n Wi-Fi instead of the newer and better-performing 802.11ac that you get on the Streaming Stick+. The Premiere+ generally sells for a little less, but it’s available only through Walmart.

Buying Options

The Apple TV 4K’s clean, easy-to-use, customizable interface provides the best overall user experience of any media streamer. It supports all the major streaming services, and it displays 4K video with HDR, including Dolby Vision, which the Roku products don’t support. If you have prior iTunes purchases, Apple will upgrade those to the 4K versions for free if available. For cord cutters, it supports all of the streaming TV services and can integrate an over-the-air tuner quite easily. However, the Apple TV is much more expensive than our main pick, and searching across multiple services with it is harder. It also doesn’t support all of the music streaming services, so you’ll need a different device for Spotify and Pandora, or you’ll need to stream them over AirPlay.

Buying Options

If you want to play back local media directly from a USB hard drive or thumb drive, the Nvidia Shield TV is the one to get because it supports almost any file format and serves as a full Android TV streamer, which gives it access to a large and quickly growing selection of streaming apps. It also supports 4K playback, including HDR, from most streaming services that offer it. Integrated Google Assistant and an optional SmartThings adapter let it work as a control center for your smart devices, and an integrated Plex server means it can serve up your media content, as well.

Why you should trust us

I’ve reviewed TVs, Blu-ray players, and home theater equipment since 2008. In my past I spent time at Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity, running the Blu-ray and DVD Benchmark they created and updating it as features changed. With the help of Stacey Spears, we devised a testing system to determine which Blu-ray players were actually accurate and which were not, working to show that, even in digital, bits are not always bits. I’m also ISF-trained for evaluating image quality and am up to date on all of the current and future HDR standards and what to look for when evaluating that content on media players.

Who this is for

Almost all current TVs have support for the Netflix and Amazon Video streaming services built in, and many TV remotes include a dedicated Netflix button to make accessing that service even easier. If those streaming apps are all you watch, you probably don’t need a separate media streaming box. Gaming consoles and Blu-ray players also have a decent amount of built-in streaming options that may obviate the need for a separate streaming device.

The main reason to get a dedicated streaming device is to gain access to streaming services and apps that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to access. Typically, streaming boxes include more channels, a more responsive user interface, and better search features. Support for newer streaming services such as HBO Now and Movies Anywhere also comes to streaming boxes before it comes to TVs. With such a wide selection of streaming services, as well as access to live TV using services like Sling or PlayStation Vue (not a PlayStation exclusive), a streaming device can allow you to cut out cable or satellite TV completely. Some companies, including Time Warner and soon Comcast, let you replace a monthly cable box rental with a streaming device. With cable box rentals costing $10 a month or more, a streaming device can pay for itself pretty quickly.

A streaming box can also give you easy access to the content you already own and let you play it on any TV in your house. You can access and play media stored on your home network (either on a computer or on a NAS device) without needing to hook a PC up to your display. And Apple users have few other options besides the Apple TV if they hope to watch iTunes purchases on the big screen.

Some streaming devices also offer exclusive features that typically aren’t built into many TVs, such as AirPlay or Google Cast, or the ability to play games. But typically these are more “nice to have” features than the major reason to get one.

How we picked and tested

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

The single most important thing any streaming device must do is play back your content. If you get most of your content from a source that a particular streamer doesn’t support (such as iTunes on a Roku), that device will not work for you. A streamer with a wide selection of content sources will be a better choice than one that has a limited selection.

A good search feature helps you find the content you want. Many streaming devices search across a limited number of services or prioritize content from a source where they earn income. For instance, Amazon’s FireTV prioritizes search results from Amazon’s own service, even if it’s not your preferred streaming service. A streamer that looks across more services and provides both free and pay options helps you find your content at the lowest price.

Your streamer should also allow you to customize the interface and prioritize the services you use the most. If you prefer to use Netflix or Amazon or Vudu, you should have the option to push those services to the front of the interface. An ideal streamer is ecosystem-agnostic and lets you—rather than the device manufacturer—make decisions.

If you recently bought a 4K TV or plan to buy one in the next couple of years, it will likely be compatible with 4K, HDR, and WCG formats, so your streaming box should be, too. At this point the price difference between 4K and 1080p streamers is $10 or less, so there isn’t much reason to get a 1080p one.

We tested the media streamers in a basic system with only a TV, and in a complete home theater system with a receiver. All were tested over Wi-Fi, and Ethernet was also used if available in the dedicated home theater system. Both TVs we used support 4K HDR to take full advantage of the streamers, and one TV was compatible with Dolby Vision, as well.

At this point the price difference between 4K and 1080p streamers is $10 or less, so there isn’t much reason to get a 1080p one.

We accessed a wide variety of content from services including Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and Vudu, and compared each system’s integrated search features.

Buying Options

The Roku Streaming Stick+ offers the widest selection of content and the best search and content selection of all the media streamers we’ve tested. It supports 4K, including HDR10 and WCG (but not Dolby Vision), and it has an external antenna for better Wi-Fi reception. This is an HDMI stick that plugs directly into your TV’s HDMI input and can be powered by a TV’s USB port—so you don’t have to add another box to your gear rack and run another HDMI cable to the TV.

The included USB cable includes a Wi-Fi antenna for better reception. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Roku has a larger selection of content than anyone else, and it continues to grow. Finding something that Roku doesn’t support is the challenge, and when new services launch, Roku is typically among the first—if not the first—to offer support. Amazon, Google Play Movies and TV, HBO Go and Now, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Showtime, Sling TV, and Vudu are all available, along with more, and you can search across them all to find the content you’re looking for. As of May 2018, the built-in Roku Channel even offers a free 24/7 live stream of ABC News, along with additional news content from Cheddar and PeopleTV. Support for Spotify was added in November 2018 with the ability to send music to the Roku from any of your devices that have Spotify on them. The only major service missing is iTunes, but Apple doesn’t open that to anyone (and the Movies Anywhere service somewhat mitigates this).

With support for 4K, including HDR10 and WCG, the Streaming Stick+ can play back today’s 4K content and is ready for you if you decide to upgrade your TV. Amazon, Netflix, Vudu, and others are currently streaming in 4K with HDR and WCG on supported titles, and more content is coming online all the time. Even if you don’t need 4K today, the price difference between a 4K media streamer and a 1080p one is $10 or less, so it’s not worth the savings to be stuck with a unit that doesn’t support current and future standards.

The Roku remote works over RF, supports voice search, and has TV power and volume controls on it. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Roku prioritizes search results to save you money and time. It first displays results from channels you have installed, sorted by price (lowest first). After this, you get results from channels you don’t have installed, which are also ordered by price. Not only does this approach help you find content more easily, it also lets you choose content from the least expensive source. For example, if a movie or TV show is available for free from Netflix but for purchase from Amazon and Vudu, Roku’s search function shows Netflix first. For people who subscribe to multiple streaming services where content changes monthly, Roku’s search function makes finding what you want at the lowest price easier than with competing streamers.

The remote has TV volume up and down keys, but no mute button. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

You can also customize the look of the interface to place your favorite apps at the top. If you use Netflix, Amazon, and Sling TV the most, for example, you can place those three apps at the top of the home screen. If you don’t use Netflix or Amazon at all, you can remove those apps entirely. This makes Roku superior to the Fire TV, which gives priority to Amazon content. If you buy almost all of your content from Amazon, this is fine, but other services’ content can be harder to find.

If a movie or TV show is available for free from Netflix but for purchase from Amazon and Vudu, Roku’s search function shows Netflix first.

Roku has added useful new features to the Streaming Stick+ remote. The remote still uses RF to communicate with the Roku Stick (which means it works through walls and furniture), but it adds an IR output for controlling power and volume on your TV or projector. During setup, the Streaming Stick+ will determine the model of TV (by reading the HDMI port) and automatically program the buttons for you. This worked perfectly on all of the TVs we tested, and we didn’t have to look up codes. With a projector, it didn’t detect the model automatically, but once we told the Roku Stick who made the projector, it tried codes until it worked correctly, and we still didn’t need to reference a manual. These controls work great, although adding a mute button to go with volume up and volume down would be nice. If your TV uses HDMI CEC it will automatically change to the Roku input, but if it doesn’t you’ll have to use the TV remote to do this.

Roku search shows the available streaming, rental, and purchase options and puts the cheapest result first. Photo: Chris Heinonen

The Roku Streaming Stick+ also has a private-listening feature that allows you to listen to shows and movies using headphones. However, the remote lacks a headphone jack, so you have to use the Roku app for iOS or Android to play your content. In some cases this will be better, especially if your headphones don’t have a 3.5 mm jack, but some people will dislike having to use their smartphone for this. If you’re using Bluetooth headphones with your smartphone, you may have lag between the video and audio, but we didn’t with wired headphones.

The tiny size of the Streaming Stick+ lets you easily plug it into a side HDMI port without it being seen, even on a wall-mounted TV. Because USB powers the stick, you can run it directly from the USB ports that almost all TVs and projectors have today. Although this means it will turn off when the TV does, it completely boots in about 10 to 15 seconds. In our testing we found that one TV and one projector were not able to provide it enough power, so we had to use the included USB power adapter for it to run reliably.

The stick’s small size also makes it easy to pack and take with you, and Roku lets you log in to Wi-Fi through captive portals, such as in a hotel. If the size of the stick is too large for your TV’s HDMI inputs, Roku offers a free HDMI extender on its website to fix the issue.

The Roku Streaming Stick+ also supports screen streaming or mirroring from supported devices, which currently includes just a limited selection of Android and Windows Phone models and no iOS support. However, if you have one of the supported devices, the mirroring works well if you want to show your tablet screen on your TV. This also means that if a streaming service you want isn’t offered on the Roku, you can stream it from your tablet instead. The result isn’t as good as native streaming from the Roku device, but the arrangement might work in a pinch.

If a certain channel that’s important to you is missing from the Roku, you may be able to find a workaround. Anyone can create a third-party channel for Roku. Using a third-party channel entails the same risks as running any piece of software that isn’t authenticated, but you can find some reliable sources for these channels. For example, during earlier testing, I noticed the lack of a Twitch channel for Roku. This has since been remedied with an official channel, but at the time, I turned to a third-party app.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Roku lacks access to iTunes and Google Play Music. If you use either of those services extensively, you should probably choose either an Apple TV or a Chromecast. However, Movies Anywhere mostly negates the iTunes issue if you’re willing to sign up for it.

Part and parcel with the HDMI-stick design is that it’s HDMI-only. So you’re out of luck if you own an older TV with only component video. If that’s you, the older, slower, and cheaper Roku Express+ with composite video might be for you.

Also, the stick design lacks an Ethernet port. If you’d prefer to use a wired network connection, the Roku Ultra has the same performance and interface as the Streaming Stick+, but it adds Ethernet and a microSD card reader. It also has a button to help you easily locate a missing remote. In 2018, Roku began packaging a pair of JBL headphones with the Ultra, because the remote supports the private-listening feature; but otherwise it remains the same device. We don’t think these features are worth paying more for, so unless you need Ethernet, go with the Streaming Stick+.

The user interface on some of the Roku apps isn’t as current as it could be. Most apps have now been updated to look current, with Spotify and HBO Now among those that were updated in the past year. However, with some less popular apps, the interface still looks worse on Roku.

The Roku interface is easy to use, but every channel lives in a sandbox that is isolated from every other channel. Apple is trying to move past this with its TV app, which lets you access different shows from different apps from a single location. Samsung TVs now let you browse shows from different apps without having to launch them, and LG lets you add your favorite shows to a quick-launch area, as well. Roku is great at getting you easy access to all of those channels but doesn’t provide quick access to shows or movies inside those channels from a unified location.

Search on the Roku is limited to searching for your favorite movies and TV shows, while Apple, Nvidia, and Amazon have expanded their streamers into full-featured personal assistants. Alexa on the Fire TV can do everything that you expect from it, which means showing sports scores and the weather, or controlling compatible smart-home devices beyond just showing you movies. The Apple TV can also work as your HomeKit hub if you’re working to expand home automation in the Apple ecosystem.

The Roku Streaming Stick+ doesn’t do well with local media playback, and it doesn’t have a local USB port (the built-in USB port is for power only). You can use the USB port on the Roku Ultra for some media, but it doesn’t support a huge variety of file types. A much better option is to use Plex on a computer or NAS device along with the Plex app on the Roku. This arrangement lets you play back far more content than the Roku can on its own. Plex also offers apps for iOS and Android that let you stream your local content to any device in the house. This setup requires you to leave a computer or NAS device powered on and running Plex, so it isn’t for everyone.

Using the Roku Media app, you can play back files from a DLNA server over your network. The interface isn’t as nice as Plex’s, and the media format support isn’t as extensive. For viewing photos or playing music over the network, it should work fine, but it can’t handle as many kinds of video files.

The Roku Stick+ also lacks AirPlay, the streaming protocol that the Apple TV (see below) uses. This means you can’t mirror your iOS screen onto the Roku box as you can with an Apple TV, nor can you stream your iTunes library directly to your Roku. If you need either of those features, you should get the Apple TV instead.

As is true with most streaming services, we take issue with Roku’s privacy policy. The company earns a significant portion of its income from advertising, and to that end it collects a large amount of user data to support that business. You have no way to opt out of much of the data collection, it isn’t totally clear what data is shared with third parties, and the policy asks you to agree to binding arbitration in the case of a dispute. Although it’s hard to avoid this kind of thing with any streaming service (and thus we don’t consider it a dealbreaker in Roku’s case), we do think it’s important that you be informed.

Buying Options

The Roku Premiere+ is almost identical in function to the Streaming Stick+, but it exchanges the HDMI-stick design for a freestanding box design. The new body is much smaller than that of previous standalone Roku boxes, but it’s still less convenient than a stick, and this model has only 802.11n Wi-Fi instead of the more recent and superior 802.11ac. Otherwise, the Premiere+ still supports 4K and HDR, offers voice search and TV control with the remote, and delivers the same great user interface and content selection of our top pick for a little less money.

The Premiere+ is less than half the size of most standalone media-streaming boxes. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

We didn’t run into any issues with Wi-Fi performance in our testing of the Premiere+, but our 802.11ac access point is located only 10 feet away from our testing area, so we’ve never run into issues with it on any device. However, some reviews seem to indicate that some people have more issues with the Wi-Fi performance than they do with the Streaming Stick+. If your home Wi-Fi network isn’t as robust as it could be, you might want to go with the Streaming Stick+.

The design of the Premiere+ is very compact, and it includes adhesive so that you can mount it behind a TV, but it still requires HDMI and power cables, so it doesn’t hide quite as well as the Roku Streaming Stick+ in most cases.

HDMI is the only input option on the Premiere+. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

The Premiere+ is currently available only at Walmart. Roku also offers the standard Premiere box, which is available everywhere and costs a little less. The only difference between the two models is the included remote control. The remote with the Premiere+ includes voice search, plus power and volume controls for your TV. The buttons that add TV control are worth the $10 price difference, as in many cases it lets the Roku remote replace your TV remote completely. The voice search is also useful. If neither of these features matters to you at all because you use a universal remote control, the standard Premiere will offer the same performance.

Buying Options

The Apple TV 4K has an attractive user interface that is easy to navigate. The device supports 4K and HDR, including the Dolby Vision standard, and Apple gives people that bought 1080p content free upgrades to 4K versions through iTunes. It also works great for cord cutters, with apps that support networked TV tuners and online TV services. However, it doesn’t include most music services, like Spotify, Tidal, or Amazon Music, and the search function lags behind Roku. The unit is designed to free up storage space automatically when necessary by uploading things to the cloud, which is why we’re recommending the more affordable 32 GB version.

At its inception, Apple’s tvOS was the best option only for heavy iTunes users. But with the addition of Amazon Video, 4K streaming with Dolby Vision support, and improved search, it has become a great media streamer for anyone. The interface takes full advantage of the resolution of 4K displays, with bright, sharp icons and text. You can customize the layout of apps, and your top five apps can give you access to content inside them without having to load them first (if the app supports it). Apple’s version of some apps is sometimes easier to use than the same apps on Roku, and you can do far more gaming with the Apple TV than you can with Roku.

All of the key channels you might expect to see are here, including HBO Go, HBO Now (its $15-a-month streaming service), Hulu Plus, Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube. It also has good sports coverage with MLB.TV, NBA, NHL, and WatchESPN channels. Fans of video game streams will note the absence of an official Twitch app.

For cord cutters, the Apple TV lets you use a networked tuner (like the HDHomeRun) to watch TV in supported apps, and it supports the online TV services like Sling, Playstation Vue, YouTube TV, Hulu TV, and DirecTV Now. You can do this with the Shield TV or the Fire TV, but the experience isn’t as good as it is with the Apple TV.

Apple’s single-sign-on feature lets you automatically sign into supported apps based on your cable or streaming TV service. For example, if you have PlayStation Vue, you can sign into your account, and the Apple TV can download all of the apps that support that service, and sign you into them automatically. It works very well for watching on-demand episodes of shows and saves you from having to log into multiple apps, but not every provider or app is supported yet. The TV app that should hold a queue of shows you want to watch does work, but it also fills it up with lots of extra content you might not want, with no way to focus on only your chosen programs. It’s a good idea, but poorly executed right now.

Most popular music-streaming services, like Spotify and Pandora, are missing from the Apple TV. You can send many of these channels to the box via AirPlay if you own an Apple device, but otherwise you’re missing some content you may find essential.

The Apple TV selects a default option for the main play button on search results, in this case knowing we have a Hulu subscription. Photo: Chris Heinonen

The Apple TV 4K lets you use Siri to do voice searches, and the number of apps you can search across keeps increasing. You can search Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and nearly 70 other services. Siri’s search results prioritize one service over the others, and the results are not as clear as they could be in terms of what services are available and the difference in price. Roku shows you more results in an organized list, and the Shield TV also has clearer results on where to stream content. The Apple TV search is fine, but others are better.

At launch, there was a problem with HDR handling that caused all content to display in HDR, even if it wasn’t HDR, and films showed at the wrong frame rate. This made things look weird. But it was addressed in tvOS 11.2. Apple also added support for Dolby Atmos, which lets you watch some streaming content with the additional height channels, but most content doesn’t support this feature yet.

Buying Options

If your top priority is playing content from your personal media library, the powerful Nvidia Shield TV offers the best local file support. Its Android TV OS supports all the most popular apps (with 4K and HDR10 support), but more important, it can play content from hard drives and flash drives either locally (via USB) or over a network using apps like VLC or from a Plex server. Roku can also play files off of a Plex server, but the Shield TV is actually capable of running its own server. However, the Shield TV interface is not as clean and easy to use as the Apple TV’s, and it does not support Dolby Vision HDR.

The ability to run a Plex server is one of the Shield TV’s most distinguishing features. It allows you to share your media library throughout your house—it supports internal, USB, and networked storage (internal works only for the 500 GB model). It can even do 1080p video transcoding on the fly. This means files will play on any Plex client (like your phone). It played every single file I tried, including 4K content, and even supports DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD bitstreams (which are the latest high-resolution audio codecs).

The Shield TV remote has a simple button layout with a microphone to activate voice search and Google Assistant. Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

As with the Apple TV, you can use the Shield TV with a networked TV tuner (or a USB tuner) to watch live TV. I preferred the experience on the Apple TV because the app I use, Channels, is better designed, but the Shield TV can get the job done. It can also integrate live TV with Plex, which allows for DVR functions and the ability to watch from anywhere in your home—something the Apple TV can’t do.

The Shield TV also offers gaming features and runs modern titles with good graphics. It supports Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming platform, which streams modern PC titles to the box. It’s much better for gaming than, say, Amazon’s Fire TV, but it still lags behind a dedicated game console or gaming PC. The Shield TV includes a game controller and a remote control, both of which can navigate the system.

The Shield TV includes Google Assistant built in, with a microphone in the remote. This can help in searching for content and show you results across multiple platforms, but you can also ask questions, play music, turn on your smart lights, and access all of the other features of Google Assistant.

Thanks to a recent software update, a $20 to $30 Z-Wave USB dongle will let the Shield TV function as a SmartThings hub. In our testing it works well, letting us control Z-Wave and Zigbee devices through the SmartThings app just as if we had a SmartThings hub.

The Shield TV’s search function doesn’t offer as many results as the other streamers do. Photo: Chris Heinonen

To allow all of that, the Shield TV has the most powerful hardware of any streamer, and the user interface is very responsive as a result. Compared with TVs that use the Android TV OS, the Shield TV is a much more user-friendly experience with fast response times and smooth animations.

Disappointingly, in April 2019 Google initiated a sponsored ad program that now runs on devices running Android TV. For now it’s running as a “pilot program,” but users report that even when they’ve gone into the settings to disable the ads they don’t stay disabled. Though a row of thumbnails on the user interface isn’t ultimately a big deal, Ars Technica points out that it is still poor form to insert uninvited advertisements onto a product which already costs multiple thousands of dollars to purchase.

What to look forward to

The major media-streaming manufacturers have now introduced their latest round of products and software updates, so we don't expect anything new for a while. But we will remain on the lookout for new announcements throughout early 2019.

The competition

The Roku Streaming Stick has the same interface as our main pick as well as the remote with an integrated microphone and TV controls, but is only 1080p and typically only around $10 cheaper. Since the Streaming Stick+ offers better Wi-Fi performance and supports 4K with HDR and WCG, we think it’s not worth trying to save a little bit for a streamer that isn’t prepared for current standards.

The Amazon Fire TV platform supports 4K with HDR and WCG, and it now supports Dolby Vision. The Fire TV interface prioritizes Amazon content first while relegating Netflix and others to also-ran status. The search results are less accurate than the other platforms’ and show fewer results. The Fire TV interface also has ads on every page. Roku has a single ad on the main page, but it is easier to ignore; the Apple TV and Shield TV remain ad-free. Integrated Alexa is nice, but we’d rather pair an Echo or Dot with one of our picks. Amazon and Google are also bickering with each other, so YouTube is available only through a Web browser and not an app, and YouTube TV isn’t available all.

The Fire TV has ads you cannot remove on almost every screen. Photo: Chris Heinonen

The updated Fire TV Stick 4K now looks almost identical to the Roku Streaming Stick+, with a compact size that hides behind the TV and a remote that can control the TV volume and power. But it has the same interface issues that the other Fire TV devices offer, so we’d still pick the Roku over it.

Google Chromecast

The updated Google Chromecast hardware offers little in the way of changes, but the updated software makes it a better option than it was before. It still uses your smartphone or tablet instead of a remote (which people love or hate), its resolution is 1080p, and it’s currently the most affordable option. The selection of supported content keeps expanding; in that one regard, it can truly rival Roku. Plus, you can usually display content that’s not directly supported by “casting” a Google Chrome tab from your computer directly to the Chromecast.

More important is the new Chromecast app that offers universal search across different apps. Prior to this, you had to open each streaming service and search to determine if a particular movie or TV show was available. That was cumbersome and annoying. The new app lets you search across multiple streaming services to find your content on whatever apps you have on the device where the Chromecast app is installed. This feature makes Google more competitive with Roku and Apple, which have improved cross-platform search on their respective devices.

Unfortunately, the search feature currently doesn’t work as well as Roku’s. In our tests, searching for Pulp Fiction, for example, brought up sources to stream the movie, but not from as many services as the Roku found. More interesting was our search for Amélie: Roku listed five sources to stream it from, but the Chromecast didn’t find it at all. When we searched instead for Audrey Tautou, the star of the film, the Chromecast app found the movie and listed two services that had it. The Chromecast search also doesn’t list prices inside your search; you have to launch apps to find out which services stream an item for free and which services require a purchase. The new search function is an improvement, but Google still needs to do some work to help it catch up to what Roku, Amazon, and Apple offer.

The Chromecast has a guest mode, so other people can use their Android device (not iOS at this time) to send content to your Chromecast without jumping on your Wi-Fi network. This feature could be useful at parties and family gatherings.

Despite its quirks, the Chromecast makes for a great travel companion due to its tiny size. You can easily take it on trips, hook it up to the hotel TV, and use your phone to stream content to the TV. If the TV has a free USB port, you can power the Chromecast from that and not need a USB adapter. Regrettably, getting it to connect to hotel Wi-Fi networks can be hard, and that makes the device almost unusable in such situations. The Roku Streaming Stick is just as easy to pack now and easily supports captive Wi-Fi ports in hotels.

Without Amazon support or its own remote, the Chromecast falls short of the Roku family—unless, as CNET says, “you’re heavily invested in the Google media ecosystem.” Google Home integration might start to help here, as you can start programs on the Chromecast using your voice, but that feature isn’t enough to push it past the Roku or Fire TV for us.

Chromecast Ultra

The Chromecast Ultra adds support for an Ultra HD resolution, including HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Unlike prior Chromecast models, it can’t run off a USB port and requires a power outlet, but the included adapter has an Ethernet port on it, as well. Everything else we just said about the regular Chromecast applies here, too.

With no support for Amazon, no remote, and not being as portable as its non-Ultra sibling, it isn’t that appealing yet. The Roku Streaming Stick+ is the same price, offers a remote, and has more app support. Google Home integration might be a reason to pick the Ultra, but for most people, the Roku is a better choice.

Gaming systems and built-in TV apps

The Xbox 360, Xbox One/One S, or Xbox One X; the PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4 or 4 Pro; a connected Blu-ray player; or a smart TV you already own probably streams Netflix and plays some local files, too. These devices are just as capable and offer a lot of the same content as most streaming devices. However, most of these also lack the extensive selection of content that dedicated streaming boxes offer and lack cross-app searching. So they’re fine, but for most people, a streaming device offers more.

Android TV

The Xiaomi Mi Box S is an Android TV box that offers Ultra HD support but isn’t as powerful as the Shield TV. As an Android box, it lacks support for Amazon Video, and the Mi Box isn’t as powerful for local content as the Shield TV is. The interface isn’t nearly as responsive as other devices, and when selecting a TV mode automatically, it thought all of our 4K HDR TVs were capable of only 720p resolution. You can manually fix this, but it will leave people disappointed if they don’t realize it, and the remote lacks the TV controls for power and volume that have become standard features over the past year.

Android (but not Android TV)

Lastly, a number of companies are making boxes that run Android, but not Android TV. The advantage to these boxes is that they can run a wider variety of apps, including Kodi (formerly XBMC). The downside is that traditional Android is designed around a touchscreen, so these boxes are hard to use without one, or at least without a mouse and keyboard. A TV remote doesn’t cut it, and they are harder to use from the couch. You’re also using apps designed for a different screen format than your TV’s. And because such a box costs more than a dedicated streamer, this category doesn’t make much sense for most people.